Typically on 1 January amid hangovers, entrails of Christmas and preparations for the trudge back to work, millions of people write in new notebooks their plans of resolve for 2013 in a bid for change. On Cif, we asked readers what their new year's resolutions were and the results were a mix of the expected, the inspiring and the unusual, as well as tips for sticking to those ambitious prescriptions for self-improvement.

Existentialisme has the standard long list of over-reaching ambitions, including reading more, being more creative, travelling, getting fit and finally:

"Be a little easier on myself. I've done nothing but beat myself up since graduating in December 2011. It hasn't got me anywhere, and it hasn't made me more determined to carve out a career. It's just made me miserable."

"Midnight 2004, glass in hand, I swore off alcohol for the calendar year till the next New Year's Eve party. By the time it came around I didn't want that drink and haven't drunk since, bar the odd glass to celebrate something special."

Google has also been asking people to post their new year's resolutions to create this zeitgeist map - including resolves like 'eat less', 'earn more' and 'grow a moustache'.

But overly-ambitious resolutions can be difficult to keep and the best intentions and feelings of promise at midnight on New Year's Eve are often a distant memory by February. Leviathon212 has some tips for keeping them:

The latest research in behavioural psychology shows that self-control and willpower function almost like physiological muscle energy. This means that

a) you have to build it up first before you can use it. And,b) if you use large amounts of it for one task, you'll be too exhausted to use it for another task.

So, if you are planning to, say, stop smoking in the new year, try building up your self-control with an easier task first, one which requires less willpower. For instance, you could set the goal of going to sleep at the same time each night. By doing this for a period of time, you'll build up a "reserve" of self-control, which you can then use for a difficult task like stopping smoking.

Second, focus on one thing at a time. If you make a resolution to stop smoking and lost weight, at the same time, you may not have the willpower energy to do both successfully. You'll use up all your willpower for one task, and will feel completely depleted for the other.

Have you managed to stick to your resolution so far? Have you altered it slightly to be more manageable? Have you made one a bit late and want to share it? Write a comment in this open thread.